The number of workers paid by farmers and agricultural services totaled 77,000 for the week of April 8 through 14. Farmers hired 63,000 workers compared with 55,000 in January 2001 and 70,000 in April 2000. Agricultural services provided 14,000 paid workers compared with 18,000 last quarter and 12,000 a year ago. Grove caretakers ran irrigation equipment around the clock to ensure proper soil moisture supplies to citrus during the survey week. Valencia picking increased rapidly. Citrus growers harvested 9,059,000 boxes, down three percent from last year's 9,348,000 boxes picked. Other grove work included the mowing, chopping and discing of cover crops. Growers picked vegetables from acreage planted after the New Year's freeze with about 2.1 billion pounds shipped, up eleven percent from the nearly 1.9 billion pounds shipped the previous year. Potato digging started around Hastings while the tomato
harvest began in the Palmetto-Ruskin region. Watermelon harvesting started around Immokalee and the harvesting of okra began in Dade County. Planting of vegetables in northern localities was very active. Cotton and peanut planting started. The planting of field corn and tobacco continued during the survey week.

  The April 2001 all hired worker wage rate averaged $8.38 per hour, a penny above the $8.37 per hour paid in January, but fifteen cents below the $8.53 paid last year. Farmers paid an average of $8.40 per hour, eleven cents above the $8.29 paid last quarter, but thirteen cents below the $8.53 paid last year. Agricul tural services paid workers an average of $8.30 per hour compared with $8.70 paid last quarter and $8.50 paid last year.

  There were 1.02 million hired workers on the Nation's farms and ranches the week of April 8-14, 2001, down 4 percent from a year ago. There were 804,000 workers hired directly by farm operators. Agricultural service employees on farms and ranches made up the remaining 215,000 workers. Migrant workers accounted for 8.9 percent of the April hired workforce compared with 8.5 percent in April 2000.

  Farm operators paid their hired workers an average wage rate of $8.31 per hour during the April 2001 survey week, up 22 cents from a year earlier. Field workers received an average of $7.61 per hour, up 7 cents from last April. Livestock workers earned $8.01 per hour compared with $7.58 a year earlier. The Field and Livestock worker combined wage rate was up 16 cents from last year.

  Number of hours worked averaged 40.2 hours for hired workers during the survey week compared with 40.4 hours a year ago.

  The largest increases in number of hired farm workers over last year occurred in the Mountain III (Arizona and New Mexico), Mountain II (Colorado, Nevada, and Utah), and Appala chian II (Kentucky, Tennessee, and West Virginia) regions. In Mountain III, a mid-week surge of dry, cool weather allowed farmers to accelerate planting of spring crops while ranchers were busy with supplemental feeding of cattle, and sheep shearing. In Mountain II, major farm activities included calving and lambing, sheep shearing, and small grain planting. Unseasonably warm and dry weather in Appalachian II allowed farmers to make good progress with spring planting activities. Many were also busy preparing cotton ground, spraying wheat, and fertilizing wheat and pastures.

  The largest decreases in number of hired farm workers from a year ago were in the California, Lake (Michigan, Minne sota, and Wisconsin), and Northeast II (Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania) regions. In California, most field activity was halted by cool, wet weather during the survey week. Growers continued cultivating and applying herbicides as field conditions permitted. Rain across most of the Lake region delayed the start of spring field work. In Northeast II, unusually cool temperatures and frequent rains slowed planting of spring crops, fertilizer and herbicide applications, and plowing of fields.

  Hired farm worker wage rates were above a year ago in most regions. The largest increases occurred in the Lake and Northern Plains (North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas) regions. The higher wages in the Lake and Northern Plains regions were generally attributable to fewer lower paid, field workers reported on payrolls during the survey week.

  Regions showing slight declines in the hired farm worker wage rates were in the Florida, Corn Belt I (Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio), and Pacific (Oregon and Washington) regions. Slight declines of hired wage rates in these regions were generally related to fewer higher paid, full-time workers on payrolls in Florida, and additional seasonal workers reported on payrolls in the Corn Belt I and Pacific regions since January.

Revisions:

  The January 2001 hired workers estimates were revised for the U.S. and California. These revisions were based on additional information received in California as part of the ongoing Federal, State cooperative program.

Table 1 -- Florida agricultural workers, number of workers, wage rates, and hours worked, April 8 - 14, 2001, with comparisons
Employer, Year, and survey week	Hired Workers
	Number of workers			Hours Worked Per Week	Wages Paid by Type of Work
	All	Expected to work			All	Field	Livestock
		150 days or more	149 days or less
HIRED BY FARMERS		Thousands		Hours	Dollars Per Hour 1/
2001
April 8 - 14, 2001	63 .0	52 .0	11 .0	39 .9	8 .40	7.75	7.90
January 7 - 13, 2001	55 .0	47 .0	8 .0	37 .6	8 .29	7.65	7.90
2000
October 8 - 14	50 .0	43 .0	7 .0	38 .9	8 .72	8.00	7.30
July 9 - 15	46 .0	42 .0	4 .0	42 .0	8 .47	7.75	7.45
April 9 - 15	70 .0	62 .0	8 .0	40 .4	8 .53	7.70	7.80
January 9 - 15	60 .0	48 .0	12 .0	41 .9	8 .28	7.40	7.50
1999
October 10 - 16	58 .0	47 .0	11 .0	38 .8	8 .05	7.05	7.00
July 11 - 17	45 .0	40 .0	5 .0	39 .7	8 .32	7.25	7.30
April 11 - 17	54 .0	46 .0	8 .0	41 .1	8 .18	7.40	6.90
HIRED BY AGRICULTURAL SERVICES
2001
April 8 - 14, 2001	14 .0			39 .0	8 .30
January 7 - 13, 2001	18 .0			29 .5	8 .70
2000
October 8 - 14	11 .0			32 .0	8 .80
July 9 - 15	2 .0			43 .0	9 .00
April 9 - 15	12 .0			36 .5	8 .50
January 9 - 15	16 .0			36 .5	8 .60
1999
October 10 - 16	5 .0			32 .0	8 .65
July 11 - 17	3 .0			45 .0	8 .85
April 11 - 17	9 .0			38 .0	8 .30
HIRED BY BOTH FARMERS & AGRICULTURAL SERVICES
2001
April 8 - 14, 2001	77 .0				8 .38
January 7 - 13, 2001	73 .0				8 .37
2000
October 8 - 14	61 .0				8 .73
July 9 -15	48 .0				8 .49
April 9 - 15	82 .0				8 .53
January 9 - 15	76 .0				8 .34
1999
October 10 - 16	63 .0				8 .09
July 11 - 17	48 .0				8 .36
April 11 - 17	63 .0				8 .20
1/ Benefits, such as housing and meals, are provided some workers but the values are not included in the wage rates.

Table 2 -- Number of workers hired by farmers, wage rates, and hours worked, selected States, April 8 - 14, 2001, with comparisons 1/
Item	Florida	California	Texas & Oklahoma	Arizona & New Mexico	Hawaii	United States 2/
	Thousands
All hired workers
April 8 - 14, 2001	63	168	77	22	7	804
January 7 - 13, 2001	55	*203	65	18	7	*691
April 9 - 15, 2000	70	239	63	15	7	840
Expected to work
150 days or less
April 8 - 14, 2001	52	133	59	19	6	627
January 7 - 13, 2001	47	*161	54	16	6	*573
April 9 - 15, 2000	62	184	41	13	6	633
149 days or less
April 8 - 14, 2001	11	35	18	3	1	177
January 7 - 13, 2001	8	42	11	2	1	118
April 9 - 15, 2000	8	55	22	2	1	207
	Dollars per hour 3/
All hired worker wage rate
April 8 - 14, 2001	8.40	8.59	7.86	7.46	10.67	8.31
January 7 - 13, 2001	8.29	*8.78	7.98	7.72	10.66	*8.66
April 9 - 15, 2000	8.53	8.29	7.47	7.30	10.58	8.09
Wages by type of worker
Field & Livestock
April 8 - 14, 2001	7.77	7.96	7.33	6.90	9.03	7.71
January 7 - 13, 2001	7.67	*7.95	7.53	6.91	9.10	*7.87
April 9 - 15, 2000	7.71	7.70	7.12	6.68	9.14	7.55
Field
April 8 - 14, 2001	7.75	7.82	7.10	6.92	9.06	7.61
January 7 - 13, 2001	7.65	*7.79	7.35	6.71	9.07	*7.76
April 9 - 15, 2000	7.70	7.64	6.90	6.71	9.19	7.54
Livestock
April 8 - 14, 2001	7.90	9.02	7.71	6.80	4/	8.01
January 7 - 13, 2001	7.90	*8.68	7.71	7.35	4/	*8.07
April 9 - 15, 2000	7.80	8.37	7.48	6.53	4/	7.58
	Average hours per week
Hours worked by all hired workers
April 8 - 14, 2001	39.9	42.1	38.6	46.1	36.2	40.2
January 7 - 13, 2001	37.6	*37.3	38.1	44.2	35.6	*37.3
April 9 - 15, 2000	40.4	44.6	37.4	50.7	37.1	40.4
1/ Excludes Agricultural Service workers. 2/ United States excludes Alaska. 3/ Value of any perquisites provided are not included in wage rates. 4/ Insufficient data for this category; included in all hired wages. *Revised.

Survey Procedures: These data were collected by the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) during the last two weeks of April using sampling procedures to ensure every employer of agricultural workers had a chance of being selected.

  Two samples of farm operators are selected. First, NASS maintains a list of farms that hire farm workers. Farms on this list are classified by size and type. Those expected to employ large numbers of workers are selected with greater frequency than those hiring few or no workers. A second sample consists of segments of land scientifically selected from an area sampling frame. Each June, highly trained interviewers locate each selected land segment and identify every farm operating land within the sample segment's boundaries. The names of farms found in these area segments are matched against the NASS list of farms; those not found on the list are included in the labor survey sample to represent all farms. This methodology is known as multiple frame sampling, with an area sample used to measure the incompleteness of the list. Addition ally, a list of agricultural service firms was sampled in California and Florida. The survey reference week was April 8-14, 2001.

Reliability: Two types of errors, sampling and nonsampling, are possible in an estimate based on a sample survey. Both types affect the "precision" of the estimates.

  Sampling error occurs because a complete census is not taken. The sampling error measures the variation in estimates from the average of all possible samples. An estimate of 100 with a sampling error of 1 would mean that chances are 19 out of 20 that the estimates from all possible samples averaged together would be between 98 and 102; which is the survey estimate, plus or minus two times the sampling error. The sampling error expressed as a percent of the estimate is called the relative sampling error. The relative sampling error for number of hired workers at the U.S. level was 3.2 percent. The relative sampling error for the number of hired workers generally ranged between 10 and 24 percent at the regional level. The U.S. all hired farm worker wage rate had a relative sampling error of 0.8 percent. The relative sampling error was 0.8 percent for the combined field and livestock worker wage rate. Relative sampling errors for the all hired farm worker wage rate generally ranged between 2 and 5 percent at the regional levels. Relative sampling errors for wage rates published by type of farm and economic class of farm ranged between 2 and 22 percent at the regional level.

  Nonsampling errors can occur in a complete census as well as in sample surveys. They are caused by the inability to obtain correct information from each operation sampled, differences in interpreting questions or definitions, and mistakes in editing, coding, or processing the data. Special efforts are taken at each step of the survey to minimize nonsampling errors.

Revision Policy: Farm labor information is subject to revision the next time the information is published or the year after the original publication date. The basis for revision must be supported by additional data that directly affect the level of the estimate. Worker numbers and wage rates for January 2001 and April 2000 were subject to revision within this report. Revisions were made and previous data are reprinted in this report for your information.

Next Farm Labor Publication Date: The August 17th report will have information for the survey week of July 8-14, 2001. The report will include the number of All Hired Workers, Average Hours Worked by Hired Workers and the All Hired Worker Wage Rates at the regional and U.S. levels. The wage rate for field, livestock, and combined field and livestock workers will also be available at the regional and U.S. level. The number of Agricul tural Service Workers and the corresponding wage rates will be published forCalifornia and Florida.